Assad: Why Talk to Trump if He Doesn’t Control the US?

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gestures during an exclusive interview with AFP in the capital Damascus on Feb.11, 2016. PHOTO: Joseph Eid AFP/Getty

10 May 2018

RUSSIA TODAY (RT) — Meeting with Donald Trump would be pointless because the deep state – not the president – controls the US, Bashar Assad said in an interview. He noted that the agenda of the deep state is to create conflict aimed against Russia.

In an exclusive interview with Athens daily Kathimerini, Assad said there was no reason to meet face-to-face with Trump, since the US president “says something today, and does the opposite tomorrow,” and is likely not even in control of policy decisions.

“[W]e don’t think the president of that regime is in control,” Assad told the paper, referring to Trump. “We all believe that the deep state, the real state, is in control, or is in control of every president, and that is nothing new. It has always been so in the United States, at least during the last 40 years, at least since Nixon, maybe before, but it’s becoming starker and starker, and the starkest case is Trump.” […]